Pay attention to children with an open heart

Quote of the day:

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. Elie Weisel

This morning I received an email from a friend, who wrote: 

"Good luck with the writing. I hope it is cathartic. I am sure that your plumbing the depths of memory will be redemptive - in helping so many others to pay attention to children, with an open heart."

I was grateful for her words because of how succinctly they captured the essence of the book I am writing. I sense, as I head toward full retirement in a couple of years, that this is the last education book I will write, and it is one that is the hardest for me. Mainly, because of how painful it is for me to think about the times I have seen adults treat children with disdain, humiliating and shaming them, when what children really needed from them at the time, was compassionate relationship - adult attention. And, because compassionate relationship, acknowledgment and validation is what I craved when I was a child, it taps into my own emotional experience, and I feel for children in our care even more.

All this on the heels of my mother's death only four months ago. I mentioned to my therapist a couple of weeks ago how grieving my mother is so much more difficult than I imagined. He responded, "You are not grieving as much for your mother as you are for your life - your childhood life where your feelings were stifled." 

While the pain is being felt by me for me and all children everywhere, and it is, at times, acute, it is also, as my friend wrote, redemptive and healing. I sense a type of release as each memory suddenly presents itself, and as I weep it up and out. A lightening and unburdening follows as I allow myself to experience the yearning I held in for so long. 

My friend's words help me realize how important this book is for me. It has been residing inside my brain for all my life. I have no illusions that it will change the world, or even sell very well - most education books don't! But, really, if it helps even one adult pay attention to one child with an open heart - I will feel satisfied. I would have followed people to the ends of the earth because I felt, for a brief moment, that they related to me - accepted me with compassion and understanding, and I know for sure that many of those moments that came from the kindness of strangers along the way saved me and nurtured my resilience. 

In a weird way, I am grateful to my mother too. I mean this most sincerely. She needed me emotionally between my ages of 7-18, and although ultimately I suffered by putting my needs away and placing her front and center, I learned to care for another. I learned hands-on about empathy and compassion from a very early age: whether it was through carrying away pots of her throw up when she was pregnant with my younger brother when I was seven; wiping her forehead with a cool cloth when she was tormented and crying, anxious about my step-father leaving her; listening to her early morning stories about whether sex was good or bad the night before with my step-father; listening to her crying and fretting about my older siblings for this or that at one time or another; actively listening while she complained about the servants, family members, her friends and all other people who might have been out to "get her" - the list is endless.

I learned early on to put aside whatever it was I was doing, thinking or feeling, and just be present for her. I learned to silently listen and hold her in my heart. And many, many times, even as a child, I would hold her and hug her to comfort her, and tell her that everything would be all right. And although my service to her was thankless, from the lack of her gratitude, I learned to be grateful for any crumb of acknowledgement that would come my way. I realized this most especially just a couple of years ago before she died, when she was bed ridden and sitting in a chair in my sister's house. She was complaining because her finger and toe nails hadn't been cut in awhile. I immediately asked for clippers from my sister and gently and carefully cut her finger nails. Then I got on my knees at her feet and clipped her toe nails. I was very gentle because she was nervous about having me do this. I spoke gently to her and stroked her when I could. When I was done, I sat back on the couch. My mother sat still a moment and then called out to my sister, "Tell the pedicurist I don't need her!" I stared at her, and thought: "Wow! Not even a tiny thank you." And my entire childhood flashed before my eyes. No gratitude for anything I had ever done for her. It was a revelation.

At that moment, I felt deep sadness for my mother. Gratitude lifts us up out of bitterness and sorrow, and without it she was, as it happened, left with so much unnecessary misery when she died.

Of course, as an older woman with life experience and knowledge about child development and the care and education of young children, I now understand that I did all that in the hopes my mother would love and appreciate me. Yes. I did it for her attention. So, while I learned to care for another with empathy and compassion, I also learned to make myself invisible, and to stifle aching for mothering myself. What a bind.

Hopefully, as I release these memories and understandings, and learn to mother myself more and more, I will find a balance in helping others, with being present for me as well.

And, more importantly I can give to children and adults what I wished I had received.

Comments

[Stanley]

Like, or rather commiserate.

[Tamarika]

Dear, Tom,
It is good to see you here! Thanks so much, as always, for your support. I appreciate your comment very much.

[Tom Potter]

Very moving Tamar. Since the early 1990s I have been aware of your great empathy with children. What I didn't know until your recent writings was how little empathy you received while growing up. And still you have taught over the years so much to so many.